A winding apparatus of this general type is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,475,974. That apparatus comprises chain means which support pairs of bearing rollers. The logs to be glued are disposed on these bearing rollers. Each roll or log is transported by means of a conveyor member through a first station in which the tail or outer end of the web is unwound from the log and laid down onto a flat surface. At a second station a nozzle, moving parallel to the axis of the log, applies glue to the end of the unwound material. At a third station, the log is rotated between the two bearing rollers so as to wrap the outer end and back onto the log and thus glue it to the outer surface of the log. Located downstream of these stations are log-pressing and closing rollers and a discharge surface. This apparatus makes it possible to attain high outputs per hour in that, at each instant, three logs are processed at the same time in the three stations for the unwinding, glueing and closing of the log, respectively. However, this type of glue applicator has a rather complex and costly structure.
It is an object of the invention to provide an apparatus of the above-mentioned type which makes it possible to reach high outputs per hour with an extremely simple construction and with a limited number of movable parts.